![]() I have owned PDFtoMusicPro for several years, through several updates, and I must say that it has always been inferior to PhotoScore Ultimate. Its output is MusicXML, and it has no features integrating it with Sibelius per se. There is a competing product called PDFtoMusic Pro made by Myriad Software which can only handle the latter case - a PDF made directly from a music scoring program without going through paper and scanning. It can also work with a PDF which was generated directly from a music scoring program without going through paper and scanning (often with very good results). PhotoScore can use OCR to scan any printed paper score which has been put on a scanner and made into a bitmapped PDF (with variable results depending on the quality of the engraving and the quality of the scanned image). Then you can buy PhotoScore Ultimate for US $250 if you think it is worth it. But you can try it out on what you have and see if you can get the hang of it. Sibelius comes bundled with a "lite" version of PhotoScore which is limited in its capabilities and can only scan simple scores. But it costs money, and it will only be worth your while if you have a lot of scores to convert on a regular basis. But first-time users of PhotoScore tend to be disappointed because they have unreasonable expectations about how it works. I have been doing this for years and I am good at it. One needs to develop some skill in using the process, finding the errors, and correcting them. The PhotoScore process is never perfect, and anything done with PhotoScore will require careful editing to correct inaccuracies in reading the images. In this workflow, MusicXML is an optional extra step.) (PhotoScore can output MusicXML, and Sibelius can input and output MusicXML, but with PhotoScore you can output directly to Sibelius, which works better. The output from PhotoScore is then sent to Sibelius, where you can edit it further. I have had success by using an elaborate (and expensive) workaround: Take PDF scores created by Lilypond, or any other engraving program, and run them through music optical character recognition (OCR) using the commercial program Neuratron PhotoScore Ultimate. ![]() If you have an optical scan, though, PDFtoMusic Pro can't work with it at all, so it's a more specialized tool.Your goal is to get from Lilypond to Sibelius. It can take advantage of knowing that you have music fonts, lines, and other higher-level graphics rather than just having dots on a page from a scanner. If your PDF is actually produced by a music notation program, you can get better results with PDFtoMusic Pro. PhotoScore has a limited handwritten capability but that requires you writing the music in a particular PhotoScore-friendly style. You need to be working with printed music. No current program works with handwritten music. PhotoScore has special export to Sibelius and capella-scan has special export to capella, in addition to the MusicXML export. All four products export MusicXML files so you can easily use the results with other programs. You will probably find it easiest to use the scanner to do the scanning, and then edit things further for an MP3 in another program. All the programs should work fine of relatively simple music, and have more trouble as the music gets more complex - particularly with counterpoint on a single staff, as in keyboard music. All of these programs have demos, so the best approach is to download the demos and see how well they work with your music. It depends on the repertoire you are scanning and your work style preferences. Which one is best is really an "it depends" type of answer. The first two run on Windows and Mac, the second two run on Windows only. The four main commercial music scanning products are:
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